George Pelecanos - Shame the Devil

“I need silver,” said Anna to Ramon.

“Okay, chica, ” said Ramon, giving Anna a quick wink for good measure.

Anna rolled her eyes and said, “If he’d spend more time getting the dishes and silverware turned over and less time trying to get in my pants, things would run smoother around here.”

“I’m working on that,” said Stefanos. “But I can’t guarantee the little guy will leave you alone. He’s like Jordan in the lane: not to be denied.”

“Can I have that frozen marg – please?”

“No.”

Stefanos got Anna her drinks: the beers, the sea breeze, and a frozen margarita, no salt. Anna dressed them and jockeyed them out to the dining room. Stefanos drew a third pitcher for two Department of Labor drunks, turned the tape over for Melvin, and refilled the coffee cup of a recovering alcoholic named Dave, who was reading a Howard Browne paperback at the bar. Stefanos made another Manhattan for Happy, served it, and emptied his ashtray.

“What’s the special today?” asked Happy.

“Grilled chicken breast,” said Stefanos.

“Any good?”

“Chef says you could fuck it.”

“Gimme one of those,” said Happy.

Stefanos said, “Right.”

Dan Boyle, a thick man with dirty-blond hair and pale eyes, ambled into the Spot at half past two. He sported a lined raincoat that looked as if it had been trampled by a horse, a worn Harris tweed jacket underneath, and a Colt Python holstered beneath the jacket. Dan Boyle had a seat across from the ice chest at the empty bar.

“Nick, how’s it goin’?”

“Going good.”

“Gimme the combo.”

Boyle dropped his deck of Marlboro reds onto the mahogany bar while Stefanos poured three inches of Jack Daniel’s into a beveled shot glass. He served Boyle the shot and uncapped a bottle of Bud that he had buried in ice. He pulled another bottle from the same place and put one foot up on the edge of the chest.

Boyle put down half his shot. His fingers were like white fish sticks, and they covered the glass. He picked up his beer bottle and tapped Stefanos’s. Both of them drank. It was Stefanos’s first sip of the day, and the beer was good.

Boyle made a head motion in the direction of the house speakers. “What’re we listening to?”

“Gaunt.”

“Cunt?”

“Gaunt.”

“Y’know something? When Melvin takes off at two, the musical selection goes to shit around here. Does Phil know you play this stuff?”

“Phil doesn’t care as long as the reading on the register tape matches what’s in the cash box.”

“I should complain.”

“You are complaining. Anyway, Boyle, I don’t see you running screaming toward the exit.”

“You know I’d never do that.” Boyle winked clumsily over the lip of his glass. “ ’Cause this here is my oasis in the asphalt desert.”

Stefanos wiped his hands dry on his bar rag. “I read in the Post how you got a new boss.”

“Yeah. The acting chief of police promoted a guy who’s never worked Homicide.”

“Nice picture of him in the paper.”

“He’s got a sweet smile, doesn’t he? Like I’m gonna march into hell behind that guy.”

“It won’t make a difference. Guys like you don’t really have bosses, Boyle. You’re one of those rogue cops you hear about. Like the ones you see on TV shows. The guys who are always quitting, tossing their gun and shield on their lieutenant’s desk before storming out of the office.”

“Except I don’t quit.” Boyle waved his index finger around the top of the glass. “Hit me.”

Stefanos took the Jack off the middle shelf and poured. “What do you hear about a kid named Randy Weston? He’s up on murder charges for doing a dealer named Donnel Lawton. Up around First and Kennedy?”

“I’m not familiar with the case.” Boyle lit a smoke. “Elaine Clay got you running on that one?”

“She mentioned something about it, that’s all.”

“You watch yourself if you’re going to be hanging around Kennedy. People think, it’s just off North Capitol and New Hampshire, it’s residential, nothing’s going to happen, right? I’ve seen some really bad shit go down on that strip. Remember the First and Kennedy Crew? The kid who shot up the police station a few years back, he was a member. Our guys were investigating a multiple homicide in that neighborhood the first time they brought him in. Things happen down there, brother. So you just watch yourself, hear?”

“Thanks, Dad.” Stefanos put fire to a Camel. “So how’re the kids?”

“Great. I walked into my daughter’s room last night – she’s all of thirteen – and I see this poster of a rapper hung on her wall. Wearing one of those slingshot swimsuits, too; the guy’s got a crank on him that would scare a mule. He’s one of those former drug dealers who make records now, raps about busting a cap in someone’s head, fucking women in the ass, all that. The same kind of boofer I see on the street every day, lookin’ at me like he wants to cut my throat. A dude bragging about being a cop killer and getting paid for it – that’s my daughter’s hero. And then, the same night, some guy calls for her on the phone; I can tell by the sound of his voice he’s a common little street -”

“Boofer?”

“I was gonna say ‘punk.’ ”

“I should have waited to read your lips instead of your mind.”

“So I give the phone to my daughter, and I gotta watch her face light up for him. I tell my wife we ought to move, but where are we gonna go, huh? We already live in the suburbs.”

“You could try Utah.”

“Ah, I hear they got ’em out there, too.”

“What do you want, Boyle? You think she ought to have a poster of you up on her wall?”

“Look, I don’t expect you to relate.”

“You’re right; I can’t relate. But I do understand you, Boyle. I got you pegged for just about the most enlightened guy I know.”

Boyle smiled. “Good thing you and me have got an understanding, Nick. Nothing like spilled blood to hold a couple of guys like us together, right?”

Stefanos dragged on his cigarette, watched Boyle crush his dead in the ashtray. Boyle got up, drained his shot, upended his bottle, finished his beer. He dropped a five and some ones on the mahogany and walked out of the bar.

Mai, the Spot’s second-string tender, came in around four and ate her dinner at the bar. Mai was wide of hip, with round shoulders and a plain, kind face featuring rosy Raggedy Ann cheeks. At work she wore her blond hair pinned back in pretzels. She was a German with a green card and a weakness for marines. Conveniently, the barracks were right down the block.

“Where you off to tonight, Nicky?” said Mai. “Gonna see your girl?”

“What?” said Stefanos. “Do I ask you personal questions about Sergeant Slaughter?”

“His name’s Sergeant DeLaughter.”

“Go ahead and answer her,” said Anna Wang, sitting beside Mai with one of Stefanos’s Camels hanging from her pouty mouth. “You don’t need to be embarrassed. We’re practically like your sisters.”

“Does that mean we can take showers together?”

Mai laughed as Anna blew a smoke ring in his direction.

“How is she, Nick?” said Anna. “C’mon.”

“Alicia’s fine.”

“That’s all you’re gonna say?”

“She’s fine.”

Roberto Juarez, Maria’s husband, entered the Spot and stayed up on the landing. He was a humorless man with a thin mustache, hard forearms, and thick, heavily veined hands. It made Stefanos angry to look at Juarez’s hands.

Stefanos put his head in the reach-through. “Maria! Your husband’s out here!”

“I’ll be right there!”